The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1887-10-06
NEW Works. ClGARMAKERs.
The C!,earncss of Certain Brands OF
Cigars Explained.
III

Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, Sept 27.-Havc you ever when
gazing into the show window of tobacconist
and wondering how Il manufacturer could
prontably sell cigars at $l25, $3.50 and 50 a
box asked yourself, who made them? Did the
ridiculous figure and the more ridiculous
weed ever seem to your fancy to cover some
strange or morbid chapter of industrial life.
In that swarming district Of New York city
known as the east side are long rows Of high
and narrow tenement houses. Four, five and
SIX stories of cheap edifice are bissected by
narrow hall and stairway from front to rear,
and each half is i'll turn bissected by Il filthy
cross hall i'll the middle Of the building Each
of these four quarters is an apartment In
the smaller teneMentS these apartments CON
tain two, i'll tho larger four, but in the great
majority of cases three small, i'll lighted
poorly ventilated low ccicd and foul smell
ing rooms. The tenants are seldom Ameri-
cans, seldom members Of our cousin races,
tic Germans, Irish ana English Nearly
all come from the prolific southeast of
Europe, and are of more or less SavOnic or-
GIN. In this mixture of races are Pclaks
Slovaks, Bohenlians, lIungarians Czechs
Roumanlans, black and white Russians. Wal
lachs, Bulgarians and Croats. In fact the
"-ioic tlLIlosidlllly VI lnau part OF Europe Is
| condensed into few thickly populated New
York blocks. They crowd the apartments
more Ike bees in a hive than human beings
i'll a home. Not one set of two rooms con-
talns less than five souls; many contain eight
OF ten. The average number of tenants to an
apartment is seven; to Il floor, thirty, and to
q dumb bcll,' as these ant heaps are termed.
10
ana these APARTMENTS ARC m thai, Jy1-nl1-
ing places. They are the workshops where
the cheap cigar is manufactured and these
foreigners are its makers The buildings are
| owned by the manufacturers The rent $50
to SIG per month"; is payable in advance, and
Is deducted by the landlord from the amount
due the tenant for his work 1t is almost
needless to remark that disposScSs proceed
lnSs are rare in the trade, though not quito
unknown, as the columns of the daily papers
have sometimes shown. The mode of work is
, simple. The tenant presents himself at the
Waferooms of his employers, receives say
/ hity pounds of tobacco, and goes back with
his load to his apartment. For this he must
return fifty pounds Of cigars, the aCidi-
! tiohal pound representing the increase in
weight of the tobacco from the absortion of
the water used in moistrning it during the
making. AS matter If fact, the increase
is really a third OF a pound. To make
up the difference, the workman utilities every
particle of dust and waste. He soals the stems
Ill hot water till they are soft and then pounds
them out into flat sllrcdS. Taught dishonesty
by his superior>, he applies it for his own
benefit and sends out lis children to gather
cigar stumps and clippings spent tea leaves
and even dead leaves from the trees i'll the
street He returns tty-onc pounds of cigars
with perfect regularity, but is always pro-
vlded with cigars and smoking tobacco which
cost him nothing.
| The tobacco is stored in his rooms in broken
boxes and dilap;,lated milk cans It is every
where else in his apartment, on the floor,
walls and ceiling, i'll the furniture, wearing
+, apparel and even in the food An outsider
who enters for the first time sneeZcs lust as if
he had taken snuff. And those who live and
work Ill this atmosphere, They all show the
symptoms of gradual nicotine poisoning, hol-
low eyes set in dark circles, Il salOw brown
skin, irritated and irritable nerves. heart dis
ease, dyspepsia and consumption.
| The man, his wife and children. working
fourteen hours a day, earn from s. to sl5 /,
week. Out of this are deducted the rent and
the fines for poor workmanship. The pittance
that remains must clothe, feed and pay the
other expenses Of life. 1t seldom does, and
crime, beggary and vice are called upon to
aid i'll filling the family eXchequcr
| The children are sent out to beg and many
OF them to pilfer. at all hours OF the day
and evening they can be seen carrying the
boards, boxes and relics they have picked up
| on the streets, vegetables they have purloined
from grocers and meats they have begged in
the markets. As they grow older their Cegra-
dation becomes darker and deeper. The girls,
Knowing no better, enter lives of shame. In
many instances they are sold outright by
their parents to men who enjoy the possession
of cook, housclceper and wife without any
ceremony of marriage.
! 1t is hardly necessary to state that moral
lty, education, decency and religion are ut an
ebb in this terrible district IN some of the
"dumbbells" they scarcely seem to exist
And yet i'll the very heart Of this population
is an ever increasing agitation. Blind, ig-
norant, fanatical and half hopeless, it takes
refuge i'll schemes of anarchism, communism
and nihilism, which it would be well for
thinking men to consider
WILLIAM Z. S. FALES
The Neck of the Giraffe.